The University as such highlights various critical issues facing the legal education and equally the profession today in the light of the changing dynamics of the growth and complexities in other disciplines of social life and insists upon these being addressed in the teaching of law. Some of these critical areas identified by the University
• Information technology and cyber knowledge
• Biotechnology and genetic engineering
• International trade and global standards
• Global accounting and legal standards
• Infrastructure systems
• Project finance and good governance
• Social justice and equation of interest
To accentuate these objectives, the University practices various methodologies of teaching
& learning process such as co-operative teaching, case studies, lecture demonstration,
group discussions, and self-conducted research. Evaluation is carried out on continuing basis on grade points. As a teaching-learning process, courtroom exercises are an integral part of the curriculum from the very first year. The University has found these exercises to be highly successful in sharpening the lawyering skills in the students and providing them a real life exposure to the profession.
In additional to the above, the University also takes pride in its eight centres of learning which it describes as the Centres of Studies & Research namely,
• Center for Studies in Agriculture and Law (CSAL)
• Center for Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions (CSBFI)
• Center for Criminal Law Studies (CCLS)
• Center for Human Rights Education and Research (CHEAR)
• Center for Intellectual Property Law (CIPLAW)
• Center for Studies in Insurance (CSI)
• Center for Regional Economic Groupings (EEC, NAFTA, ASEAN, SAARC) (CFREG)
• Center for WTO Studies (CWS)
The University also conducts several short and medium term orientation, training and refresher courses for NGOs, Government officials and public administrators, local self-Government, legal professionals including members of the bar and the bench, other administrative authorities and corporate officials.
National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore became functional in 1988 as the first Indian Law University. Established under the 1986 statute of Karnataka Legislature, it is the only law school in India that is sponsored by the Bar Council of India.
To provide high-quality legal education, the Law School has forged unique partnership with the Bar, the Bench and the Academia. Right from its inception, leading lawyers, academicians and judges have associated with NLSIU in different ways.
The five-year B.A., LL.B.(Hons.) programme offered by the Law School integrates legal studies with that of four social science subjects, which include History, Political Science, Economics and Sociology during first two years of the programme. During the first four years, all subjects are compulsory, but in the fifth year, students have a choice to attend optional seminar courses that can be chosen according to one’s preferred specialization area, such as corporate law.
Experts in various fields are invited to conduct seminars of these optional subjects, such as International Taxation, Information Technology Law, Telecommunication Law,
Negotiation Skills, Law of Elections and Women and the Law. Scholars and experts from India and abroad are also invited to conduct the credit courses, comprising about 18 lecture hours in a week. Students with basic understanding of the subject can attend these credit courses. Credit courses that are available include:
• Shipping Laws,
• Genetic Resources Policy,
• Law and Literature,
• The U.S. Patent Laws, and
• South African Constitutional Law.
Students with strong academic credentials may get opportunity to work as law clerks with the Supreme Court and High Court Judges. NLSIU also offers state-of-the-art research centres that work in the fields of:
• Juvenile Justice,
• Environmental Law and
• Intellectual Property Rights.
Besides participating in research activities, the students can participate in workshops and seminars conducted regularly in fully equipped International Training Centre.
Student community at NLSIU is alive with curricular and extra-curricular activities and events. The practice in the moot court hall, which was named after Honorable Justice Hidayatullah, has been quite instrumental in assisting the students to win moot court competitions at national and international levels. NLSIU also hosts moot and debate competitions where participants from all over India and neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Malaysia participate, along with sports and theatre festivals from time to time.
Social Justice Activities in legal education at NLSIU:
1. The Legal Services Clinic: this is an institution which every law school is encouraged to have in the interest of better legal education for its student body. Practical training or clinical education is best organized around the clinic which can be in the
Campus or outside or at both places. National Law School has it both in the Campus and at the City Court Complex.
The Clinic organizes a variety of programmes involving the students and the Faculty.
Firstly, it operates an advice and counselling centre giving para-legal services to interested clients, and social action groups. Secondly, it runs in association with a Women’s group two rural mediation centres in a cluster of villages serviced by the group. Apart from awareness generation and mobilization for legal action, this activity is directed to settle disputes informally through conciliation and mediation techniques. Thirdly, the Clinic imparts legal literacy packages to groups of students in undergraduate women’s colleges in the city enabling them to use the resources of law to solve their problems in their later
career and life. Fourthly, the Clinic organizes periodically week-long residential para-legal training courses for representatives of social action groups wherein they are given
capabilities for giving first-aid in law, for accessing courts and public authorities, and in liasoning with legal aid authorities and professional bodies involved in legal aid. Fifthly, the clinic gives supportive services in the organization and conduct of Lok Adalats which is a popular forum for settlement of disputes through negotiation between parties. Finally, the clinic does field research and on-the-spot investigation on issues of public importance involving social justice and submits reports to parties concerned and occasionally initiates public interest litigation in the higher courts of the country.
The Clinic is managed by a retired judge who is the professor of Clinical legal education in the law school. He is assisted by students and other Faculty members. The activities of the Clinic are integrated with the education of the students for whom credit is given for their participation. Periodic seminars and workshops around the experiences in the Clinic enable the students to critically evaluate the role of law in Societies and its limitations as a change-agent and to understand professional ethics in the context of social situations and value systems.
2. Centre for Women and the Law: It is widely believed that all systems of law discriminate against women in theory and practice. In this context the Centre at National Law School undertakes academic and extension activities directed towards understanding gender justice issues and rendering legal support to women’s’ rights. The Centre works in close cooperation with the Legal Services Clinic and shares its resources.
Among the activities of the Centre are the following:
(a) Feminism in Law and practice: The entire spectrum of legal discourse and jurisprudence is subjected to scrutiny from gender perspective and, in the process, the curriculum at the law school is revised, law reform proposals are advanced and legal practices are questioned on grounds of human rights. In fact, the process has become so intense that a Gender Study Circle is formed amongst the students and a series of research articles on “Feminism and the Law” have been assembled and published in a special issue of the National Law School journal. Even pedagogy at the School has been influenced by this movement for gender justice.
(b) Law Reform activities: One innovative programme the Centre launched among law students was a nationwide competition in community-based law reform proposals on the subject of “Women and equality.” Groups of students from different law schools were expected to select an area of law and an appropriate community to live and experience the people’s perception of the given Law. They are then required to study the lawyers’ law on
the subject and come out with proposals for reforming the law to serve the people better. It has been a great success and the Centre has now announced another round of competition around workers and their rights. Some student groups have moved in the direction of translating their reform proposals into law by lobbying with activist groups, media networks, political parties and sections of the bureaucracy.
The National Law School reaped rich dividends in the process. The School was commissioned by the State and National Governments to assist them to draft laws
concerning women and with the revision of some existing laws. A great opportunity for an academic institution to influence social change and promote gender justice came through this initiative of the School.
(c) Networking and legal support programmes: Most activities of the Centre are performed in association with NGOs working in the area of Women’s’ rights. This facilitates
networking for mutual benefit. Students are sent on placement training with NGOs and they, in turn send their activists for para-legal training to the law school. The academic content of legal education acts enriched in the process and a social orientation to legal education necessarily emerges out of this association. The law school which has an inter-disciplinary curriculum imbibes new methods of integrated learning and new insights into the role of law in society.
4. Continuing Legal Education: Very early in its development, the Law School was approached by the University Grants Commission for organizing refresher courses for law teachers and by the Bar Council of India for continuing education for young advocates. In organizing these programmes, the law school developed a variety of contacts and skills which in turn helped to improve its regular teaching and research activities. Besides sharing experiences and probing problems in legal education and legal practice, these courses provided opportunities for student placements and influencing the actors of the legal system about social concerns which the law school gathered from the NGOs and social activists. This dimension was felt intensely when the law school was summoned to do training courses for the subordinate judiciary particularly for judges of the Family Courts.
Though the programme puts a heavy burden on the law school resources, it has proved a great leap forward in sensitizing and orienting the legal system towards wider social tasks and challenges.
Many law teachers seem to think that these activities which the National Law School has taken up in the last five years do not fall within the domain of legal education and law schools generally are ill-equipped for these tasks. They are certainly right in their
assessment of the equipment (and perhaps the commitment) of the average law school to discharge responsibly social justice programmes of wider import. But the tragedy of legal education is that without such involvement, law schools will remain isolated and alienated from the people and legal education will lose its potential to engineer social justice
particularly through its consumers who are eventually to become the actors of the legal system.
If rule of law has to be part of the democratic culture and if human rights were to be respected in governance, there is no alternative except to inform and illuminate legal education with social values drawn from the people for whom the laws are made. The days of lawyers being more craftsmen and judges only umpires in adjudication are fast
disappearing and systems of accountability are developing within the legal system and outside. The function of legal education is to enable people to respond to these challenges with a sense of commitment to the struggle for human rights and a feeling for suffering of people everywhere.
'Access to Justice'- Legal Aid Committee national law university
The university has a tie up with international organizations and Bhopal based NGOs. The Committee provides necessary legal information to these NGOs. A number of students have been associated with NGOs and have been rendering their services on a personal level. These personal services have now been channeled through the official legal committee. The activities of the cell include:
• NLIU's partnership with NGO's in pursuance of the Supreme Court Ruling pertaining to the distribution of compensation to the victims of Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
• Adoption of the village Kesla to provide legal assistance and creating awareness amongst the tribal block of the area.
• The students of the university have been associated with the Narmada Bachao Andolan and have been helping the oustees in registering their grievances with the Grievance Redressal Authority (GRA).
• The university has established a strong network with NGOs such as UNICEF, UNHCR, Helpage India, Amnesty International, WWF, CRY, Samarthan etc to support socially relevant causes.
• The university has established a patnership with the Bhopal District Courts in organizing Lok Adalats, whereby students participate in settling disputes.